BONUS PODCAST

Biden outlines agenda of executive actions planned for 1st day in office.

The inauguration will be unlike any other thanks to the coronavirus and violent threats. 

& How Trump's most consequential policies have changed America.

GUEST: Rob Goodman, Professor, Dept. of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University

-

Biden indicates plans to cancel Keystone XL pipeline permit on 1st day in office, sources confirm

GUEST: Ian Lee, Associate Professor at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University

-

Misinformation dropped dramatically the week after Twitter banned Trump and some allies.

In the first week of 2021, we witnessed an angry mob descend upon the US Capitol, resulting in a shaken country, lives lost, and a seemingly tenuous democracy. This was a stark example of the consequences of information warfare and a reminder of the need to counter such activities from hostile foreign states.

In the latest edition of MLI’s Straight Talk, Elisabeth Braw, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and MLI senior fellow Marcus Kolga discuss the need for building a resilient society to defend against information warfare. This publication is based on a transcript of a recent episode of Pod Bless Canada that features a conversation between the two experts and MLI senior fellow Balkan Devlen, as part of a project supported by the NATO Public Diplomacy Division.

Throughout the conversation, Braw and Kolga discuss how western societies are failing to address the growing information warfare in Europe and Canada.  As Braw notes, “I think the fundamental challenge that we have is the increas­ing distrust of authorities, whether it be government authorities, political parties, or news media in our societies.”

Throughout the conversation, Braw and Kolga discuss a wide range of topics including:

GUEST: Elisabeth Braw is a Visiting Fellow at the Ameri­can Enterprise Institute

The COVID-19 crisis offers an opportunity to create a new, better normal at Canadian long-term residential care facilities.

The report’s short-term recommendations include: making all staff permanent and limiting their work to one nursing home; raising staff wages and benefits, especially sick leave; rapidly providing testing for all those living, working or visiting in homes; ensuring access to protective equipment immediately; and severely limiting transfers from hospitals.

In the long term: evidence suggests policymakers should more effectively integrate long-term residential care into the the public health care system, through federal legislation similar to the Canada Health Act, in order to develop a universal public long-term care plan that is accessible and adequately funded; stop privatization and promote non-profit ownership; ensure protective equipment is stockpiled for the future; build surge capacity into labour force planning and the physical structure of facilities; and establish and enforce minimum staffing levels and regulations.

GUEST:  Dr. Pat Armstrong, Distinguished Research Professor at York University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

-

Ontario hasn’t seen the last of inspectors who fanned out across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Areas this weekend and uncovered dozens of COVID-19-related violations at big-box stores.

Labour Minister Monte McNaughton says the province will expand and continue its blitz, which is meant to get the virus under control.

McNaughton says 50 inspectors visited 110 retailers on Saturday alone and found 31 violations of COVID-19 prevention protocols.

GUEST: Monte McNaughton, Labour Minister for the Ontario Government 

-

Conflicts of medicine, how they affect patient safety and health, why they are wrong, how they are concealed, not only at the individual but the institutional level and with Pharma

GUEST: Dr. Nancy Olivieri,  Physician and a Professor of Pediatrics, Medicine and Public Health Sciences at the University of Toronto

It's time for Tech Talk with Adam Oldfield!

Hamilton Community Benefits Network’s Karl Andrus is working with a group of 11 local not for profit groups, including the YWCA Hamilton, SPRC, HCCI, Acorn, Environment Hamilton on a Just Recovery Hamilton campaign ahead of the 2021 Budget discussions at City Hall.  The group released a policy paper today on recommendations for how a COVID recovery in Hamilton might look, including suggestions for city staff and council to consider. 

This will be part of a broader conversation between the coalition of organizations and the residents of Hamilton on how we can build back better in a post Covid city.

https://justrecoveryhamilton.ca

GUEST: Karl Andrus, Hamilton Community Benefits Network

Regularly randomly testing students for COVID-19 could help control outbreaks in schools and allow them to remain open, reveals a new study involving a University of Guelph researcher. The study, published recently in BMC Public Health, found testing one to two students a day in every classroom could be an effective way to keep transmission rates in schools stable. Dr. Monica Cojocaru, study co-author and a professor in U of G’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics, said while schools have relied on physical distancing and masks, conducting more COVID-19 testing is key to keeping schools open.

Based on a school with 500 students with 20 classes of 25 students, the researchers found that with no other control measures, testing every student every 10 days would avoid school outbreaks. That would mean testing three students a day in every class.

They then ran their calculations under the scenario of students wearing masks, which would reduce transmission risk by 30 to 80 per cent, depending on the mask and mask-wearing compliance.

In that scenario, the number of students needed to be tested in each class every day would drop to roughly 1.5, which would mean 900 tests a month.

The researchers concluded that regular testing of students can control infections if tests are done frequently and processed quickly, so long as infected students can self-isolate at home.

GUEST: Dr. Monica Cojocaru, Professor of Mathematics with the University of Guelph

-

Canada and other U.S. allies are looking to President-elect Joe Biden to re-engage with the world amid shifting global power struggles and pressing challenges facing the environment and free trade systems.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said as such in an interview with Reuters Next aired on Thursday, in which he also expressed confidence that the U.S. electoral system and institutions have been upheld following the violent siege of the U.S Capitol on Jan. 6 by what he called “a small, angry mob.”

“There is a need for a re-engaged United States in global circles,” said Trudeau, 49, who took office more than five years ago.

ALSO: Biden Proposes $175 Billion to Reopen Schools

GUEST: Jason Opal, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of History and Classical Studies with McGill University,

-

Under Ontario’s new emergency measures, police officers do not have the authority to stop a car solely to check compliance with stay-at-home measures, and individuals don’t have to tell officers why they’re outside, according to a government memo.

Sent to police chiefs Wednesday on the eve of Ontario’s emergency measures coming into effect, the government memo provides some guidance to police and by-law officers now enforcing the province’s stay-at-home order after confusion over officers’ role.

GUEST: Superintendent Will Mason of Hamilton Police